Section 9.2. VMware Tools for Managing the Virtual Infrastructure

9.2. VMware Tools for Managing the Virtual Infrastructure

The following is a brief introduction to the main tools you'll use to manage your virtual infrastructure. Depending on the size and scope of your VM deployment, you may not require VirtualCenter at this point and time. Without VirtualCenter, however, you will need to become very familiar with the MUI, the Service Console, and VMware Remote Console. It would be in your best interest to become familiar with those interfaces regardless of whether you deploy VirtualCenter or not. The three interfaces you'll utilize to manage your environment are:

• VMware VirtualCenter

• VMware Management Interface (MUI) and the Service Console

• VMware Remote Console

Now we'll give a brief description of each of the management interfaces you'll be using.

9.2.1. ESX Server Management Interface and the Service Console

The ESX Server Management Interface is the out-of-the-box administration option available to you to administer your virtual infrastructure. When you're working with a small VM deployment such as a test lab, these tools will be adequate and cost-effective. When you start consolidating and migrating more physical servers into a production virtualized environment, using the out-of-the-box tools to administer your environment will be difficult to manage in the long run. Security becomes more complex, and the ability to understand the placement and function of all your VMs will grow cumbersome. The MUI and Service Console give you the following capabilities:

• Review system status information for VMs hosted on ESX Server

• Start, stop, suspend and reset VMs

• View memory usage and performance statistics for ESX Server and VMs

• Launch remote console sessions for VMs

• Configure start-up options for VMs and ESX Server

• Modify virtual hardware

• Create new VMs from scratch or from a template

• Modify your ESX Server configuration

• Manage VMFS volumes and Service Console files and directories

• Change hardware allocations

Probably the biggest drawback with native tools is the fact that you can only view the resources hosted on a single ESX Server, and you don't have the ability to migrate running virtual machines from one host to another without a third-party tool. With the introduction of other third-party management agents and their management console, you can get a more detailed view or your environment without having to deploy VirtualCenter, but none of those options give you the same capabilities and flexibility that VirtualCenter does at this time. That may change in the very near future. This chapter goes into more detail on using the out-of-the-box tools, and we'll cover topics like integrating ESX Server authentication with Active Directory, setting security on VMs to allow different levels of access, and monitoring performance. For more information on creating and deploying templates, please refer to Chapter 3. We'll cover templates with VirtualCenter is this chapter.

9.2.2. VMware VirtualCenter

VirtualCenter is a Windows-based application with a database back end used to centrally manage ESX Servers, GSX Servers, and the virtual machines they run. Both ESX and GSX Servers are referred to as managed hosts in VirtualCenter. VMware has designed VirtualCenter as a management framework that can be used to manage all the virtual machines in the IT enterprise. Whereas the native out-of-the-box ESX Server administrative tools allow you to manage a single instance of ESX Server and its VMs, VirtualCenter permits you to manage hundreds of ESX Servers from a single console and thousands of VMs. VirtualCenter also lets you perform the following management functions in your virtual infrastructure:

• Monitor all managed hosts (ESX or GSX Servers) from a central console.

• Manage access to virtual machines (analogous with controlling access to physical servers and racks in your datacenter but without a physical server). The security can be integrated with Active Directory to help simplify access controls and take advantage of existing authentication mechanisms.

• Monitor the performance and state of all VMs and perform actions based on configured alarms.

• Provision new VMs from standard templates.

• Clone a virtual machine.

• Migrate VMs from one physical host to another (cold migration).

• Migrate a running VM from one physical host to another with VMotion.

• Organize VMs into logical groups for management and security access, regardless of the server that's hosting them (as long as the VM are part of the same farm).

• Manage hardware allocations.

• Start, stop, reset, and suspend VMs.

• Add or remove virtual hardware.

Later in this chapter, we'll cover the requirements for technologies like VMotion, as well as how to create and deploy VM templates, migrate VMs and monitor the performance of your managed host and virtual machines. We'll also cover security using farm groups, farms and virtual machine groups.

9.2.3. VMware Remote Console

The VMware Remote Console is probably the most frequently used administrative component within the virtualized environment and is available outofthe box with ESX Server. The remote console is similar in nature to a KVM switch in a server rack in a data center (without the added expense and annoying KVM cables). This interface gives you access to your server console just as if you were standing at a physical server with a monitor, keyboard and mouse attached. You can control power, suspend, and reset a virtual machine and also connect/disconnect virtual devices. You will become very familiar with this graphical interface while administering your virtual infrastructure. The Remote Console provided by the VirtualCenter client is slightly different from the stand-alone application that you install from ESX Server, but both offer the same functionality. This chapter will cover the Console application available with VirtualCenter and its capabilities.